The latest swing-state polls from Politicalwire show that although Romney might have a very small edge in the national polling it is a different picture in the battle-ground states, those that have the potential to swing, where the President is just ahead.

Millions of dollars are being ploughed into these states by both campaigns and their supporting bodies in a huge TV operation. But it is not just a question of how much you spend but how the campaigns approach the advertising buying business. This is from NBC:

*** If Obama ends up winning the presidential contest, it could very well come down to this: Team Obama has a tactical advantage over Team Romney, and that’s especially true when it comes to advertising strategy.

Politico has this example: “Voters in Columbus, Ohio, saw 30-second television ads for both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney while watching ‘Wheel of Fortune’ on their CBS affiliate over three days in September. For Obama’s team, the order per spot cost $500. For Romney’s, the price tag on the order was more than five times steeper at $2,800 per ad.” What’s going on here? Politico explains, “Romney places his commercials on a week-to-week basis, rather than booking time well in advance, and typically pays more so that his ads don’t get preempted and to spare his campaign the hassle of haggling over time as prices rise.”

The overall impact is that there are many more Obama ads which appear in a much wider range of media. The full Politico report is well worth reading.

The story has another angle. For what does it say about Romney’s much vaunted business skills, as his opponents are arguing, if he cannot get something so crucial to his campaign as ad buying right.